Archive for September 2010

Over the last couple of months I have been driving my machines around in my car a lot. The heavy embroidery machine went to a workshop, then the bigger sewing machine went to the shop and back. Then the little machine went on vacation to Montana then it went to the shop. And the other day, the bigger machine went to the Guild sewing session.

After all this I have been wondering about the safety of all this machine travel. Every now and then you hear of someone dying in a survivable car crash, having been killed by a flying laptop computer. We buckle our kids in to keep them from flying around during a crash. Mostly we think of them going through the windshield but what about if they hit the driver in the head? I buckle my dogs into the seatbelt to protect me and them in case of an accident.

I have put my machines on the floor behind my seat; on the seat behind my seat and in the cargo area in my SUV. I have a cover over my cargo area but I know from experience, if it gets hit wrong it comes off and would itself become a flying object. I buckle in my 4 gallon water bottles when I take them to be filled. I run the seatbelt thorugh the carry handle. I need to buckle up my sewing machine!

I like sewing as a hobby and profession but I don’t want it to kill me. So, I decided we all needed to be reminded to travel safe with our machines. Buckle them into the seat or transport them in the trunk. Make sure you and your machine will survive an accident and live to sew another day!

Today, I joined seven other newcomers to the quilting guild, for a quilting session, to make our official badges.

I am a firm believer that we all need to wear name tags because I have a lousy memory for names. Luckily the guild likes its members to wear badges, so all newcomers make their own version of the official desgn. Blue is the predominate color for all badges. The guild provides the silver lame for the star. I provided those that wanted, with their names embroidered on light blue fabric, in red thread. I also offered them the guild initials in yellow on white fabric for the moon.

It hangs around your neck. I am thinking of adding a buttonhole so I can use a badge clip on it. Most of us modified the pattern to include a pocket on the back of the badge. It is a good place to carry money and ID without dragging a purse around quilt shows and other events. It needs a closure though. Thinking of velcro or a snap.

It was fun to get together and just sew a project. We plan to do it again. I learned a few things and enjoyed chatting with the other newbies. What a great way to spend the morning!

Saturday I went up to Sunnybrea for a scrapbooking weekend. It was my first time to do an overnight event. As it turned out I met a great bunch of ladies, ate some good food and got some scrapbooking done.

I spent most of Saturday afternoon and evening getting all my digital scrapbooking caught up. I am doing a yearly album so I got our trip to Billings MT into the book. Sunday morning I went around taking pictures so I could document the weekend. I didn’t count but I think there were about 80 of us there. We took a group picture between rain drops. I already made a page for it.

On Thursday, I got my Wild Ginger PatternMaster 4 software. Part of my time at Sunnybrea was spent familiarizing myself with the program. I am pretty impressed. With luck, this weekend I will get a chance to try it out. I got a new wireless printer to use at the Studio, with this software. There is a jacket I want to try making a pattern for and I desperately need a pants pattern.

Work is very busy these days. This and next week will be killers. After that, I will be dropping my work in Kelowna which will free me up for more time in the Studio. I have so many things I want to do but it is slow going currently.

I signed up for a class in WordPress at the local college, in November. I plan to learn how to make this Blog fabulous!

And I am booking my flight back to Billings in December to meet my new grandchild. The baby is due Nov. 10th so I will get there when it is still new and exciting. Hopefully I can be helpful. Unfortunately hubby can’t get the time off work. He is very disappointed.

If anyone is interested in getting a personalized pattern made, let me know. Until next time!

Went to my first Vernon Silver Star Quilters meeting this morning. This was a good time. The guild is getting ready for the big quilt show Oct. 1st & 2nd at the Rec Center. They do this every three years, with the other two guilds in town taking the reins the other years.

Not being one to be shy, I jumped right in and signed up to work on Saturday and to bring goodies.

The Newcomers group will be meeting next week to make our badges so we are official. I offered to embroider everybodies name with the embroidery machine. The material will then be cut to the right size for the badge. We can then have easy to read names on our badges.

My friend Shirley invited me to join her and her friends at the Spallumcheen Golf Course for lunch, after the meeting. That was a lot of fun. I had never been out there. Not surprising since I don’t golf. 😉 The food was good and the company was great!

I am looking forward to being part of this group. I admit I am mostly a fashion sewer but I do like quilting. I don’t do it much or even very well but that’s ok.

I guess my reasons are three fold: I want to do some designing; I am interested in patternmaking & draping; and I want to offer sewers in this area the opportunity to get custom fit patterns. And if they are willing to pay enough, I might do a bit of custom sewing.

Some of you might be thinking that I need to learn patternmaking with a pencil and ruler and you would be right. That is the plan. I have information on several classes that are offered around the US but they are not an immediate option.

The ICS Dressmaking & Design course included the basics of patternmaking and draping so I should have enough knowledge to get some software to work. I also found that Wild Ginger has online classes in patternmaking. No fuss, no muss, no travel.

I started my research with the May 2009 issue of Threads magazine. They had an article highlighting three packages: PatternMaker Professional Studio 7; Bernina My Label; and Wild Ginger PatternMaster Boutique Version 4. A Google search brought up a couple other programs that didn’t excite me. I visited each website looking for easy of use, lots of options and good editing options.

With all that in mind, I am leaning towards Wild Ginger. The price is right too, currently $200 USD. They offer a formalwear collection as an added program for $200 USD. I want to try designing wedding dresses. With them also offering the online classes for patternmaking, they offer everything I want right now.

So my wonderful readers, have any of you got suggestions, comments, recommendations or opinions on this subject? I would love to hear from anyone who owns patternmaking software or anyone who has tried anything Wild Ginger offers.